Weakness Generation

Everybody has an Achilles' Heel, a weakness that can really mess up his day. The nature and severity of the weakness varies with the individual, race, or class. Normal Humans have so many we don't even think about them, aside from heeding such warnings as "Poison" or skull-and-crossbones symbols.

A Weakness is a cause-and-effect situation. A specific stimulus causes the Weakness to appear. Its effect is what actually occurs to the hero as a result of being exposed to the stimulus.

The final consideration is the duration of the Weakness. This is the length of time the hero is affected.

Okay, why should you, the player, even pay attention to this section? As I said, everyone has a weakness. For Normal Humans, the standard stimuli are Elemental Allergy, Molecular Allergy, and Energy Allergy with Fatal Effects. Superpowered heroes possess an enhanced resistance to all of these stimuli but retain a special Weakness to a specific stimulus. Normally, the effect is limited to Negation and Incapacitation, but if the hero

To determine cause, effect, and duration, the player must make 3 separate percentage-dice rolls, 1 for each factor. If all of the hero's Powers are of Rm(30) rank or lower, the player can convert a Fatal Weakness to an Incapacitating Weakness.

Note: Many Powers have inherent weaknesses in themselves. Also, certain Physical Forms have pregenerated weaknesses. These are in addition to any weaknesses that are randomly determined in this section.

Stimulus1D100Effect1D100Duration1D100You can see the Stimulus descriptions here.

possesses any Power with a rank exceeding Rm(30), there is a possibility that a Fatal Weakness exists.Heroes and villains should do their utmost to prevent anyone except their most trusted companions from learning the nature of their Weakness. Barring that, the hero should try to find ways to avoid the Stimulus or circumvent the Effect.

Players and Judges should work together to develop a playable Weakness. The more Powerful the character, the more common the Stimulus should be. For example, when David E. Martin was testing the character generation system set out in the Ulitmae Powers Book, he rolled up a character he named "Godling." Godling was a Normal Human who had been Reborn into an Entity of Great Power. He possessed 30 different Powers, but had 1 tragic flaw. Magnetism completely negated his Powers. (He spent all his days and nights trying to escape Earth's gravitational Pull.)

The Nemesis Power can be used to simulate Stimuli, but this should be used as a last resort. Judges who do this should be penalized by the players.